Saturday, November 05, 2005
Arrr matey...
Cruise Ship Carrying Western Tourists Attacked by Pirates off Somalian Coast
...NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Pirates armed with grenade launchers and machine guns tried to hijack a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast Saturday, but the ship outran them, officials said...Two attacks last year up to 15 attacks this year, so far. I wonder why the huge increase? Maybe, they're losing and just getting more desperate... oh, wait... that's the Iraq insurgency.
...There has been a steep rise in piracy this year along Somalia's nearly 2,000-mile coastline, with 15 violent incidents reported between March and August, compared with just two for all of 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a division of the International Chamber of Commerce that tracks trends in piracy.
In June, a U.N.-chartered ship carrying 935 tons of rice for Somali victims of the Asian tsunami was hijacked by pirates, who held crew members hostage for three months before releasing them...
